Councillor Christopher Jarman
Title: Group Leader
Party: Empowering Islanders
Electoral Division: Totland and Colwell
More information about this councillor
Contact information
Home address:
Freshwater Court
Court Road
Freshwater
Isle of Wight
PO40 9NU
Mobile: 07905 002834
Bus. email: chris.jarman@iow.gov.uk
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Committee appointments
- Audit and Governance Committee
- Extraordinary Meeting of Full Council
- Full Council
- Isle of Wight Pension Fund Committee (Chairman)
Term of Office
- 10/05/2021 -
Appointments to outside bodies
Annual Report
Annual Report 2022
Councillor Councillor Chris Jarman JP – Totland and Colwell Ward
My election by the residents of Totland and Colwell was based on a clear direction regarding key local issues of overdevelopment, environmental protection, regeneration and meeting the housing needs of local people. Our success in forming the Alliance Group and then taking political control of the Council brought the opportunity of joining the new Cabinet as portfolio holder for Strategic Finance, Corporate Resources & Transformational Change.
The early days consisted on understanding the depth of debt held by the Council and the mechanisms for managing the income and expenditure within the various areas. I am required to understand issues in detail, identify problems and fix them.
It is evident that the Council works in a manner different from that of regular commercial businesses but that does not detract from the opportunity to gradually introduce commercial best practices. An imminent launch of a new Commercial Strategy for the IWC will set the scene for trading entities, activation of our own housing company and rationalisation of internal and external business units.
Regularising the Pension Fund Board and chairing the Pension Committee have also fallen under my management with the fund showing a healthy recovery to above fully funded by the end of the year.
We have established a cross-party group of Councillors to review and recommend reforms to the planning functions, delivered a legal budget in the most difficult of financial circumstances given the lack of adequate funding from central government, and successfully delivered grants to residents and businesses during the Covid epidemic.
The year ahead contains even greater financial, organisational and management challenges that we look forward to meeting for the benefit of Island businesses, creation and maintenance of well paid jobs, providing housing needed by and affordable to local residents and to the benefit of all Islanders.
Chris Jarman
May 2022